Planning and implementing conversation-led marketing

Digitised media channels have given brands unparalleled opportunities to engage consumers in conversation. Here the authors propose a strict definition of conversation and its elements, in order to show prior limitations of consumer engagement and as a guide to deeper and more fulfilling interactions for all participants. To date, even though the marketer can use Big Data to identify the right audience and ‘programmatic advertising’ to reach that audience effectively, too few campaigns are seen to succeed. It is less the technology, but more the processes behind it and their governance that are failing. When the authors created the CLEAT management framework, they wanted to give the marketing professional comprehensive guidance on what it takes to successfully conduct conversations from the initial contact and context setting all the way to a commercial transaction. Since then they have found numerous use cases where its implementation led to higher marketing performance. The authors share some of these examples and discuss new technologies that enable each step along the process.